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Wesley Snipes once again borrowing heavily from Asian films, Snipes stars in Game of Death, which pays tribute to Bruce Lee’s incomplete final film, instead of his famous movie, The Art of War. The game of death went straight to DVD in febuary 2011, which was a couple of months before Snipes got sentenced to jail for tax evasion. Other than the blade franchise, His latest movie appearance was 2010’s brooklyn’s finest. During those ten years, there are about nine direct to DVD movies released and Game of death is the most recent one.
Going by the title and the Netflix summary, I thought I was going to watch a hospital version of die hard. Like, maybe, he goes floor to floor fighting people and then has to fight a really tall basketball player which is very much optional. It would be a bit hilarious since they absconded the name from a Chinese film which means Snipes could, in theory, fight a much taller dude instead of Kareem Abdul Jabbar. It would have been a fascinating twist.
Snipes plays the role of marcus, who is an undercover cia agent. You understand this because five minutes have elapsed and he already states “i am an undercover agent for the cia.” He is telling this to a priest played by ernie hudson (sugar hill, the crow, ghostbusters), who, together with marcus, is exposition/narrator.
Now, in case you miss that little line, there is also a flashback (of many others) a few minutes later that shows his boss/mentor asking him if he would go undercover. As in all secret meetings in movies, this one is also on a park bench. But his boss/mentor/father figure is claiming that this is some kind of impossible mission. And just in case you miss that too, there is the always dependable newspaper headline to remind you what this is all about. And all this is within the first 20 minutes of the film.
The Unimpossible Mission has Marcus going undercover as the bodyguard for an arms dealer Frank Smith, who is portrayed by Robert Davi in Die Hard, Raw Deal, The Taking of Beverly Hills, No Contest, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. He was, however, unaware that all the other members of his team had decided to go rogue and claim the money for themselves. Tall Marcus will always bet on black, and he is not going to fail and allow these traitors to succeed at their goal.
To my surprise however, Game of Death is neither a movie which can be compared to a Die Hard-ish movie and nor is it anything related to Bruce Lee’s Game of Death. It is similar to Passenger 57 in that it in a way is intended to follow the Die Hard The formula and then makes a U turn and opts for more standard action formula. The movie is clearly divided into three acts: presentation of characters and setting, a cat and mouse game in a hospital, and finally the building where Smith, played by Davi, does business with his partner Redvale, who is portrayed by Quinn Duffy.
Perhaps it is time to recognize that after deciding on the title, there isn’t too much in relation to what the story is about the film. Here, Snipe and everyone else is in a gloomy state. Gary Daniels, Zoe Bell (performers of Death Proof, Bitch Slap, Agl of Death) , along with many others, provide very convincing performances as the traitors. Since Bell is a trained stunt woman, one would expect her to do more than just shoot guns (to be fair, she does has a more prominent role in this movie than her cameo in gamer). However, Daniels does have a very engaging confrontation with Snipes at some point towards the end. The only negative here is a single scene where the patient at the mental ward in the hospital seems detached from the rest of the low-quality dtv action films.
For now, it is clear that we could foretell the character roles that each person would assume and so, this brings a lack of suspense or attention. With its framing device, we know from the opening that marcus manages to escape with a bag which increasingly makes all the dialogues and negotiations futile. So the claim of death being part of the title does seem to ring true. So the film neither strikes as dangerous, nor that amusing.
Giorgio Serafini’s action film, Game of Death suffers from post-production symptoms, much like what most DTV action films do. To avoid boring the audience, he superimposes, hard cuts, fade outs, grainy shots, and even black and white images, creating what may be described as a collage. While most action films are unbearable to watch, this particular one is not nearly as bad, despite having nearly the same problems. I appreciated that the film was shot in the city of Detroit, instead of Vancouver or merely the eastern side of Europe. Also, as I have stated in previous reviews, I enjoy stellar big city montages. While it may seem monotonous at first, the Led Zeppelin-inspired rock score is played for every action scene, which works. The reason it works is due to being heavily reminiscent of Kashmir.
Watchable as a not-so-good dtv action movie, game of death falls short and I would put it a wee bit below passenger 57 and just about on the same level as the art of war. For me, the most intriguing detail is the behind the scenes stuff. Abel ferrara ms 45, China girl, the funeral, body snatchers 93, dangerous game, The Addiction, and Subway Stories quitted after some weeks into the shooting. The wrap around scenes involve snipes in church and that basketball game which is somewhat reminiscint of ferrara‘s new york gory flicks starring snipes – bad lieutenant and king of new york and it makes one wonder what ferrara‘s approach would have been like. The use of more or less appropriate pop culture references is a positive step, but we are still a long way from the snipes that appeared in not just ferrara‘s work, but also spike lee’s mo better blues and jungle fever, mario van peebles new jack city, ron shelton white men can’t jump, philip kaufman rising sun, mike figgis one night stand, and even maya angelou down in the delta. I hope, after his incarceration, he will undertake projects these (and demolition man) instead of being a more skilled but still grating or laughable seagal-esque d-t-v actor.
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